Sky broadband warning!

[bunfright]

Me and husband run a small cafe and recently had sky broadband fitted. While installing, the engineers drilled into our air conditioning unit. It has killed it obviously and needing to get the unit replaced. This was two months ago. Now being given the run around and they are trying to get out of paying! Am I being unreasonable to think that a huge company would treat a tiny company fairly and with respect?!

Sorry this has happened OP. I am not a legal guru, but (presuming you are in the UK) this information about making small claims might help:

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money

We've had Sky in a few different houses and I've never let them do the install themselves as they're a riot. Drill from inside out without checking what they're going to hit / taking off big chunks of render, throw the cables randomly all over the outside of the house and barely tack them down so they end up dangling everywhere. Cowboys.

Found a local aerial guy who does an amazing job of it and doesn't destroy the render, hides all the cables behind guttering / downpipes etc. Not expensive and worth every penny.

SIL lost a door-sized chunk of harling off their brand new build house due to Sky - the builders had pre-warned them not to use Sky engineers as well so refused to repair it and they were left like you dealing with Sky.

Was he a Sky employee or a contractor?
Despite being in a Sky liveried van, you may find he wasn't employed directly and they try to shift responsibility that way.☹️

Big companies can move like a glacier when things like this happen but oddly enough, we have always found BT were really good with issues despite having a bad rep.
When we had FFB installed in our previous house they (BT/OR) had issues with buried concrete in the front garden. Took them three days to get the fibre correctly installed, but they stuck with it.
A neighbour had Virgin who just laid the fibre under their gravel and went away.

Generally Sky broadband is actually installed by openreach in my experience, that could be the issue

Am I being unreasonable to think that a huge company would treat a tiny company fairly and with respect?!

Unfortunately in this day and age you are. I read consumer pages in various newpapers though some consumers are small businesses/sole traders. I regret reading them sometimes as they just make me feel angry and helpless.

Anyway make sure you have all your complaints in writing not just phone calls. So if you make a phone call write it up in an email later. Then once you have waited enough you tell them you are taking them to either ombudsman or small claims.

I had to take Virgin Business to the ombudsman a few years back but mine was about billing. I won then covid hit so they delayed paying me for another 4 months until I wrote to the CEO and threatened to take them to Court.

Thank you very much for all your replies. I would have been in touch before but we have been busy working! Curse of the self employed!

Virgin/telewest drilled through my parents' water pipe and paid to have the carpet cleaned and bottom half of the living room re-decorated (below dado rail)